We will now briefly examine that wide range. According to this logic, the Golden Age is “DCU 1.0.” The official end of the Golden Age is highly debatable since the beginnings of the Silver Age have a wide-range of possible starting points. Heidi MacDonald of “The Beat” numbers the original Silver Age DCU as “DCU 2.0” since it comes from the first reboot and is therefore the second DCU.
Ken Quattro has labeled the end of the Golden Age as the GENRE AGE or CODE ERA, reflecting the late 1950s boom of EC’s horror line, horror’s influence on the medium as a whole, and the subsequent Comics Code Authority being created in response. Batman was created a year later, cementing the new era. In 1938, Superman was born and the Golden Age (1938-1960, roughly) started off with a bang. According to Quattro, 1933 was the first year that the format of comic books began to resemble what they would look like in the Golden Age and beyond. Scholar Ken Quattro has also coined the term NASCENT AGE to describe the period between 1933-1938, which either replaces or overlaps the end of the Pre-Modern Age. In a sense, this first ever “comic book reboot” began with the creation of Superman and Batman at DC at the end of the 1930s.
”For the intents and purposes of the Real Batman Chronology Project, I have referred to the classical comic book ages that were born from line-wide continuity reboots-the GOLDEN AGE (1938-1960), the SILVER AGE (1960-1986), the MODERN AGE (1986-2011), and NEW AGE (2011-the present).īatman wasn’t around until the Golden Age of comic books, but before that there was the so-called PRE-MODERN AGE (or PLATINUM AGE, VICTORIAN AGE, or PULP AGE), which has its roots in the mid nineteenth century, ending in 1938. Taschen collects superhero comic books, separated into their respective ages/eras, notably splitting the Modern Age into the “Dark Age” and “Modern Age.